[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Lying about age on ship's passenger list

[JMPerl47 at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/29/2006 2:25:40 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
maurmike1 at verizon.net writes:

I  haven't seen much of this with my German side. My Irish consistently  lied
about ages always younger. My Irish grandparents had 5 children over a  span
of 12 years. On each of the 5 birth records their ages remained the  same
over that span. That is my grandmother was 30 and my grandfather was  40 from
1901 to 1912. Ships records were that way  too.<<<<
 
My gr-grandmother came over with 6 children in 1887. If I hadn't known from  
my gr-uncle's naturalization records the date and the ship, I'd have never 
found  them because of the wrong ages and wrong names and even a wrong gender on 
one.  There was a humorous (to me) entry:  "Emma, age 17, spinster".  
 
On a different note, but same idea, I've noticed that people rarely  admitted 
they were divorced on census records. I spent 3 years trying to find a  death 
record or burial place for the wife of a widowed ancestor only to find out  
she'd run off to Kansas with another man.